and the big one here would be medicaid and especially medicare. if you had to tell your democrat colleagues, here is the one reform that i think you should make to medicare, to reduce the growth and expenditure there, what would it be? would it be increasing the eligibility age? would it mean that the wealthy have to pay more? what would it be? >> there are any number of those things. you say to people at or near retirement, we're not going to change it for you. but for younger people, they want a change. they'll support it because we've got to make sure these entitlement programs are solvent both now and for the future. so i believe we can come together in a bipartisan way and do this. it's got to be part of a package in order to get the job done. >> i couldn't agree with you more on that because the history of american workers over the past 24 years is that we have adjusted to reduced benefits, to changes in our benefits plans, if we're given time to get used to it. let's talk about defense cuts. this, too, is an area, as mr. bowles says, we spe